Divination (10min)

Divination highlights the high accessibility to so-called private data and offers an alternative view of information we transmit on a daily basis. By actively operating a network as a performance tool, the artwork interrupts the flow of user experience illuminating the complexity of uninformed consent strategies. Using distributed network of WiFi access points and social media bots, the artwork collects information about its audience and generates audio-visual experience.
Built using:
OpenWRT custom firmware
Modified captive portal (Wifidog)
Websockets JSON streaming for PureData

Produced in collaboration with Cosmic.Berlin & Contemporary Art Tasmania.

Divination - traditionally a method of visualising the unseen - highlights the ease of access to so-called ‘private data’ and offers an alternative view of the information we transmit on a daily basis. Audiences will be chaperoned by human and non-human agents (that is, ‘chatbots’) called Pirate Girls, through an energetic collision of nautical mythology, computer culture and transgressive fiction. This performance explores our relationship with mysterious or communal forces and how they relate to 21C mass electronic surveillance programs. You 'the audience' [remote or local] are invited to think about the delphic relationship you may have with networks, signals, codes and other things you can not fully comprehend, but may opt in to. The modern Pyrate Queen, is not asking for gold to attend - but your data for the crews collective treasure chest - in order to steer the show. The maiden voyage performance of Pyrate Queen and her crew, set sail for the duration of Dark Mofo 10–19 June 2016.